


Haley's Blessing

by RebaK1tten



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Offscreen character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebaK1tten/pseuds/RebaK1tten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Hotch/Reid site on LJ. Haley gives her blessing to Hotch moving on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haley's Blessing

 

It’s what Spencer expects this time of year. A couple of weeks before the anniversary of Haley’s murder, Aaron starts getting quiet and withdrawn. He’s not sullen and he’ll engage with anyone who starts a conversation, but he won’t start one. His sleep becomes more erratic, insomnia one night and then sleeping all weekend. His appetite is gone so Spencer makes foods he likes and has Jack push him to eat. They make love, but only if Spencer initiates it. This continues until the actual anniversary of Haley’s death and then gradually gets better, until he’s himself a week or so after.

Spencer watched this carefully the first year. The general malaise, and pulling away; it was all too familiar from his childhood. But when Aaron stares off at nothing, he’s not thinking of the government listening to their thoughts or the electronic waves poisoning them from the light bulbs. Spencer recognizes this for what it is: grief and guilt. Grief over his ex-wife’s death; the death of his son’s mother. And of course the guilt from not being there for her when she needed him and for bringing the monster into their lives in the first place. There’s the added guilt that they don’t talk about – Aaron is moving on, evidenced by Spencer in his and his son’s life.

Last year, Spencer went with Aaron and Jack to the church service, arranged by Haley’s parents. Organized religion wasn’t that important to Haley, but since it is to her parents, this is how they want to commemorate the date of her death. After the service, they go to the cemetery and place flowers on her grave. Spencer went because it was important to Aaron and Jack wanted him to go. Jack wasn’t sure exactly what this was about, but he knew it was about his mother and after getting over his initial suspicions, Spencer is family and so he should be there. Now, when he draws pictures of his family for school, he draws Daddy with a gun and Spencer with a book and Jack draws himself with his imaginary dog, Simba.

Spencer kept Jack busy before the service and kept him quiet and occupied afterwards while the rest of the family was talking with the minister. He quickly took Jack for a walk outside when he saw Haley’s parents approach Aaron, fire in their eyes. They weren’t quite outside when he heard Haley’s father hiss at Aaron, “My daughter is in her grave because of you, and you? You’ve forgotten her with some young man in your bed?” Spencer had Jack outside before he could hear the rest. Back at home, Aaron didn’t offer any information and Spencer was, frankly, afraid to ask.

This year, he’ll go again, join the family at the service and stay out of everyone’s way. If he could chose, he’d stay away, but this is support for his family and hopefully with another year gone, it’ll be easier on Aaron, Jack and Aunt Jess.

On the anniversary morning, Spencer wakes up slowly and looks over at Aaron who is already awake. It looks like he’s been awake for a bit, as he’s facing Spencer and smiling just a bit. “Good morning, sleepy,” Aaron says as he leans over and kisses Spencer’s forehead.

“Hey. Morning, Aaron. You’re awake early.” Spencer isn’t a morning person and he expected a few minutes to put on coffee and brush his teeth.

“Yeah, I had…I had the strangest dream. We all skipped…” Aaron starts and then the door bursts open and Jack rushes in and crawls up between the two of them.

“Hi, Daddy, Hi, Spencer, let me in.” The boy wiggles into the middle and scooches down under the cover. He pulls Spencer’s pillow until he has enough for his head. “I had a really good dream. We went to a picnic with Aunt Jess and played tag and ate cake. And there were monkeys.” He sighs loudly, smiles at Spencer and quickly falls back into snoring softly.

Spencer looks up at Aaron who is staring at his son. “Aaron, you okay?”

“Yeah, um, my dream… ” He starts again and his phone rings, with Jess’s ring tone. Aaron answers and holds the phone in between the two of them so Spencer can hear.

“Hi, Jess, how are you?”

“I’m okay, Aaron, hope you guys are good. Listen, I want to suggest something kind of strange, so just let me talk for a minute, okay?”  She can’t see Aaron nod, but she continues, “Haley wasn’t a church person and she wouldn’t want to spend such a pretty day inside. If she had everyone in the family together, she’d want to do something outside and fun. This stuff we do today, it’s all for Mom and Dad and not what she’d want. So… Spencer should make his coleslaw and I’ll make sandwich wraps and stop at the bakery for a Red Velvet cake and pick you guys up and…”

Aaron interrupts, “And we’ll go to the zoo. And have a picnic.”

Spencer hears Jess gasp over the phone. “Aaron? That’s…how?”

“I dreamt that. And so did Jack. To the zoo. Haley liked the monkeys. She’d act like a kid and try to make them yell.” Aaron is shaking his head and smiling at the memory. “Yes, let’s do that. I can call your parents and tell them. It’s not like they can hate me any more than they already do.”

“Hmmph. No, actually they probably can, they have unknown depths of hate and disappointment that keeps them going. You don’t need that, I’ll call them.” They hear Jess give a combination of a snort and small sob over the phone. “Wow, I don’t know where that came from. But I need to talk with them. They don’t do this for Haley, or even because of grief, they do it because this anger feeds them and gives them something to do. You two don’t need this and I’m tired of it. Haley wanted to be sure that Jack knows that you’re fun and can be happy and he won’t know that in a cemetery. I’ll pick you up at 11 and we’ll go to the zoo. Right?”

“Sure, Jess. And thanks, again, for everything. See you at 11.” Aaron disconnects the phone and sets it down on the nightstand, being sure that he doesn’t move too much and wake up his sleeping son.

“You all had the same dream?” Spencer asks. “There’s been studies that people who experience the same thing during the day, may have similar dreams or share a general theme, but this is…I don’t know what this is.” He looks at Aaron, as though he’ll explain.

“I don’t know how, but maybe this is Haley’s way of saying that we need to move on. And you’re included, you know that, right?” Aaron leans forward and kisses Spencer softly, morning breath be damned.

“Yeah, I know. And thanks.” Spencer looks down and gently smoothes Jack’s hair off his damp forehead. “We don’t have to be ready until 11, any chance we can go back to sleep?”

Aaron smiles and pulls the blankets up to tuck under Jack’s chin and around his partner’s shoulder. “I can use a little more sleep. I want to see if I can finish that dream.”

 


End file.
